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Success – Paige Elizabeth

I expected to be surprised. I expected to have revelations. I didn’t expect Jeff to change my life.

Photography found me when I was already almost thirty years old. I didn’t have one of those ‘I was born with a camera in my hand’ stories for Jeff to beat out of me. But, I did follow a yeoman’s path with photography. I started out photographing babies because a friend had her first child and I didn’t know what to give them, so I photographed. I always liked animals, so I photographed dogs. From a technical perspective, I was lucky to learn my camera and film and light with some of the hardest subjects possible. But that’s as far as it benefitted me. I spent almost a decade continuing to photograph whatever someone wanted… small projects, big projects, commercial, local, national… Girl with camera. Will travel. And not once did it make my heart race.

And then I photographed a wedding. It was like the whole world exploded in joy around me… and it still wasn’t enough to make me specialize. It took Jeff. Sitting across a pub table from me pretty much demanding that I choose. That I specialize… or risk the consequences. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that at this point I was only beginning to wake up. We hammered away and Jeff had me completing tasks that I had always dreaded but that somehow I was now doing with great joy. I knew exactly who my favorite brides were and absolutely loved getting back in touch with them. It felt glowy and happy and easy. And then he made me cry.

You see, this is part of the magic of Specialism. It gives you permission to be only you, the real you, the you that somewhere deep inside seems like might not be good enough. Like Cinderella knowing only that she lost a shoe… not yet realizing what was waiting for her… Jeff made me cry when we started talking about my family and my brother’s struggle with a life-threatening illness. I’d told that story a million times. I knew exactly my role in it. And not once had I ever owned it. I cried talking about it and Jeff saw right into its heart. He said I was the hero. He saw the link through every tiny bit that we had poured over through months of hard work and into the truest part of me. I get teary again now thinking about it. How could something that I’d always held in my heart with such pain be the true source of my love?

I’ve needed to be the hero for my family again since then, but its different now. Now it comes from love. It’s not a burden, it’s what I, Paige, the one and only truly unique me, can give them. The hero still sounds too big and self-important in my head, but I know that it’s how I feel about love. Now when the people I love call on me, I marshal my hero’s heart to their side with great joy. It’s the same joy that I feel on a Saturday morning when I gather my cameras and step out the door. I’m going to be at the side of couples I adore, ready to be their little hero on one of the best days of their lives. Because I know, and they know, that falling in love is the most heroic thing we do.

These days when I pick up my camera or take a meeting I know, and I mean all the way down in my toes know, that I am searching for my tribe, my people, the couples who feel like long lost friends almost before we say hello. That’s what Specialism gave me. Complete ownership of me. Not of how I photograph, but of who my life has made me and how that instinct and experience and complete love of being the heroic romantic isn’t something that I’ve battled through or carried as a burden. It’s my gift. It’s what I and I alone can offer. Specialism gave me a path… to me.

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